


Shared Across A Thousand Miles

by entirely_too_tall



Series: Chowderweek 2017 [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Father Son Bonding, Full Moon, Gen, chowderweek, it's actually a thing, my uncle does this, through tea and poetry and moongazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-06 00:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_too_tall/pseuds/entirely_too_tall
Summary: Whenever Chris can't fall asleep at night, he goes to a window and looks for the moon. The reason Chris looks for the moon, though, is because he would catch his father doing the same.





	Shared Across A Thousand Miles

**Author's Note:**

> The Chinese has and absurd number of poetry and songs about the moon. The [most famous Chinese poem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Night_Thought) that everyone knows is about missing family by looking at the moon. We have a festival for the moon when other countries make it about harvest (Mid-Autumn). We will not run out of feelings for the moon. Hence, my choice to make it Day 1, a fortuitous coincidence that it is also the Mid-Autumn festival. So go out and look at the brightest full moon of the year!
> 
> Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi, I am only expanding upon it for our collective non-commercial pleasure.

Whenever Chris can't fall asleep at night, he goes to a window and looks for the moon. Depending on the time, on the month, on the season, some nights he won't find it at all. Staring up at the sky with the orange glow from the city nearby, the hazy darkness makes for a view that takes and gives nothing back. Chris would just pace for a while and return to try for some fitful sleep.

Most nights, though, he does find the moon. Some nights, it hides behind clouds, peeking its light through but otherwise hiding its body behind a veil. The moonlight would always form a rainbow halo through the layers of water, casting the moon like a pearl. 

It reminds him of Emily Dickinson, how a depressive recluse could be so bright and vibrant, even through attempts to hide away. Some days he feels like Emily Dickinson too, like the moon, wishing to hide away, to dim the light, to escape the gaze of others. It's not always admiration or affection behind that attention. 

Some days, it's only his braces, and that even he understands as a rite of passage. Some days, it's his face, and even though everyone's face gets a turn, what they say about his face in particular, those hurt. Even when other's say he's bright like the sun, some days Chris just wants to be like the moon behind clouds, bright enough to be remembered by those who would look for him kindly, and dim enough to be forgotten he was there by the rest.

He likes to count the days till the full moon, especially if he catches the slivers at the start of the cycle. His childhood friend Issa Hakeem taught him about the significance of the crescent moon in Islam, and he has been reminded of Issa every time. He thinks it's a convenient way to measure the start of the month, since it's by definition impossible to see the new moon, which is when the Chinese lunar month starts. Then again, the Chinese lunar calendar always has the 15th land on the full moon, which is a nice and convenient number. Or maybe the month should start on the full moon. That would have been much easier for everyone, Muslims and Chinese alike. 

The reason Chris looks for the moon, though, is because he would catch his father doing the same. On nights when they both were up late, Chris would find his father at the chairs under the window, looking out. They wouldn't talk much, just taking in the view, tracking the moon as it treks slowly across the sky. Especially when it passes behind branches, the wheel in the sky shows its slow crawl. 

Occasionally, his father would have some tea out, steeping in the teapot. It would be his favourite, _baimudan_ , White Peony. Not a very masculine, strong tea. Soft, mild, fruity sweetness just right for a quiet night. Chris would search high and low in Boston for that tea. He would call home one time and ask where to find it, and his father would laugh and say he missed it too much at Samwell too, but could only find it on the west coast. Chris would return to the Haus one day after class to find three boxes of _baimudan_ and a tea set, FedExed with no note. He would make everyone drink it that night, and skype home on the laptop so that his family can see everyone enjoying the tea.

On the nights when the tea was out, Chris' father would be more talkative. He would recite poetry from memory, many about the moon and some others, none that Chris could understand in Cantonese or Mandarin, but he would appreciate the lyrical sound, the cadence of notes and tones, how they fell into simple but memorable meters. Once, he even sang it! A singer produced a [sung version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPHAR0bJfXQ) of the poem, which was a big hit back in Hong Kong, and Chris would remember his father, holding a cup of tea, singing softly under the moonlight.

Stories of his father's childhood back in Hong Kong would come out from those moonlit nights. A usually reserved man, those nights were treasures to Chris, who learned of snippets of his father's life, mostly just a neighbourhood or food that he misses, sometimes shenanigans during his school years. It bound them closer, the tea blessed by the bright waterfall of light from the window. 

Every mid-autumn festival, the 15th of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, it would supposedly be the brightest moon all year. Chris would follow his family to the community center where they had a street festival, and they would eat stinky tofu and steamed peanuts, buy lanterns and guess the puns on them, try the flavours at the mooncake competition (mochi and ice cream mooncakes? What will they think of next!) 

They would then go home and get to stay up to watch the moon. As a young child this would always excite Chris and his sister Claire: not only do they get to stay past their bedtime, they get candy and tea! It would be a whole array of teas, _pu'er, tieguanyin, longjing, juhua_ , and of course the _baimudan_. The neighbours were invited, and Issa came over, even on a school night, and they would run around with their lanterns while the parents chatted. 

It would always conclude with the telling of the story of the Chang'e, who rose to the moon after drinking too much of the elixir of life and leaving her husband behind. He would make sacrifices of food for her, and hope that people remember her when looking at the moon. Chris thinks about the story, and how it always reminds him of this special holiday. He thinks of all the poems and songs about the moon that his father showed him, and all the nights they spent quietly side by side. 

Whenever Chris can't fall asleep at night, he goes to a window and looks for the moon, and thinks about how it has been looking down on generations of families, on his family, and he thinks that wherever he goes, he brings a piece of home with him, high up in the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Come yell at me on [tumblr](http://ohjustletmewriteinpeace.tumblr.com).


End file.
